Same route, different journey

Lately it seems everything I do I'm doing again: I'm filling the wood-burner again and fighting off invasive mice again and trying to get students to understand concepts like dualism and pastoralism and utilitarianism again and again and again, and did I really tell that Twinkie story to an entire congregation this morning again? That story's older than my adult children and it's morphed to fill so many contexts that it barely resembles its original kernel of truth, but I think it's a truth worth telling again and again and again or I wouldn't keep telling the story. (Again.)

Today I drove home from Jackson again and watched for red-tailed hawks on the trees along the highway and again I told myself that one of these days I'll stop and take a picture of the hawks sitting in a stately manner, unperturbed by passing traffic, but I never seem to find the right spot for pulling off the road at a place where a hawk is posing and a time when I have my camera nearby, so again I kick myself for being unprepared when hawks present themselves again.

It's helpful to have a routine, I suppose, to have a good idea what I'll be doing and teaching and even wearing from one day and week and month to the next, but sometimes I need to think and drive and do something different, although I'll probably do it wearing my same old boring clothes again. Yesterday, for instance, I bundled up in my favorite flannel shirt and livened up the drive to Jackson by stopping to take photos of the snowy landscape in the gently morning light, and even though most of the photos aren't very good, I enjoyed the attempt to see my surroundings from a slightly different angle, as not just places to drive through but as lovely little nooks offering unique perspectives. 

This fear of stagnation also explains why I'm tackling a whole new topic in my film class this fall instead of going back (again) to the old faithful topic that has served me so well, and it's the reason why I'm teaching the Colson Whitehead class this semester (and watching students surprise me every day with new insights) and why I've been formulating a list of texts I want to teach before I retire--or teach again, this time with new eyes (but probably the same old clothes). I can't keep driving down the same old roads again and expect to arrive at a new destination, but I can take a few detours to enliven the journey.

An unexpected view of winter beauty.